square mile in the Dragon's Den!

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BlueSkyNick

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square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

Square Mile founder is on BBC2's Dragon Den, and had 3 offers to give him the funding he was seeking, but for different levels of equity!

Fortunately Peter Jones and Theo ? have become partners.

Trouble is he has overstated their existing performance - he does NOT have agreements with every large marina in the UK - ie MDL marinas are not included.

Will be interesting to see how it pans out from here on...
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

How did you feel about his take on boat owners? He seemed to think they're all rich and ready for harvesting!
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

In my last job I used to do similar presentations to only one "dragon" at a time - hated it

I thought there is a weakness in his argument also of 120 a year to pay for internet in your home marina - how much time do you actually spend in your own marina? I do not know about anyone else but normally when at the marina I am either working on the boat or more often getting there then getting away - will check weather etc. from home then go down the boat

Internet access from an anchorage would be much more useful which is where 3G would kick in

was the program not recorded quite a while ago nearer the start of the year? wonder how it is getting on
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

My first requirement is to have a reliable, reasonable value service in my home marina - which is MDL owned. This would enable me to log on either for business or personal reasons before setting off anywhere.

Being able to access the service elsewhere would be added value.
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

not only that, square mile signals are so weak you either 1) have to buy their 'special' network card (i.e. a high gain 1, which you can buy cheaper else where) or 2) sit within 10 yards on the tranmitter.

Whilst i like the idea of the service i dont like implementation of it, why not just give us network sockets on the shore power posts? (ok cost is more, but service would be *so* much better)
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

It would be interesting if we could get him to do an online presentation to us on the forum.

I reckon that some of the forumites would make the "dragons"look like sunday school teachers. /forums/images/graemlins/grin.gif
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

It was an amusing pitch - didn't mention that the current customer base had been built by offering free accounts. Nothing about duplicates either - I seem to have 4 accounts because their signup system didn't work properly one weekend.

Its just like the ISP goldrush of errr... yesteryear /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif

Rick
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

OK, keep talking, I'd be interested in setting up a service like this. What do you want, bearing in mind it has to be profitable.
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

Square mile and other wifi providers DO provide interntet access, that's the whole point. Why go 3G when so much more expensive, and no 3G signal guaranteed in many parts of UK, never mind at marinas. Many people spend lots of time there.
Not sure many anchorages at present will give 3G coverage, as it's mainly urban conurbations, motorways to some extent, and big transport hubs like airports. It is improving though.
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

A lot of marinas are in fact prewired for telephone connections at the berth.
I never knew until at Haslar, the berth holder next to me got a phone line installed for standard BT charges and then signed up for ADSL - ran his business from his boat for over a year without all the hassle of a flaky wireless connection
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

Great for liveaboards, but not ideal for weekend, occasional visitors, who just want access while there, without fixed costs of line and ISP charges. Not so good if you want to marina hop and still get access?
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

[ QUOTE ]
Whilst i like the idea of the service i dont like implementation of it, why not just give us network sockets on the shore power posts? (ok cost is more, but service would be *so* much better)

[/ QUOTE ]

Nice idea, but they get a bit uppity if I leave my shore line plugged in to the pontoon. Ah, but, ah, but I am on a mooring by the marina. Why should it be restricted to marina bods, hm?
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

What about Broadband over the shorepower, technology is around to do it...
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

Yes, but it suffers with not being particularly mature. You need something ubiquitous, not something that will be unique to a small set of marinas.

Wifi is losing its window of opportunity, I fear. Its not reliable enough, and too fragmented at the moment. I reckon that 3G/UMTS will winout as once coverage is there, it'll be more reliable and you won't have to maintain separate accounts for your marina, rail travel, coffee bar, etc. Its taking over in Europe already, but will probably be insanely priced in the UK.

Rick
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

[ QUOTE ]
OK, keep talking, I'd be interested in setting up a service like this. What do you want, bearing in mind it has to be profitable.

[/ QUOTE ]
The customer requirements are straightforward, as is the technology. Getting agreement to make it happen seems to be the difficult bit, like where to site the base, who provides and pays for the (little) power, etc.

There is clearly an ongoing lack of agreement between MDL and Square Mile. There is another issue specific to Hythe, where most of the berths belong to the house owners, with the minority being rented to outsiders. So there are some people, such as myself, Wiggo and probably Nicho who would be keen, but not sure if there are many others. But at other MDL locations, there should be plenty more demand.

Even at smaller locations, its only the cost of a BT line and a decent router with Wifi.

All I want is to be able to go to the boat and be able to log on to a reliable and secure service at a reasonable price. Then to move the boat to another location (near to civilisation) and do the same. Simple as that. For example, this would enable me to go to the boat on Thursday evening, work on Friday morning, then set off after lunch.

Tariffs would be an interesting challenge, as I am more likely to pay a premium price during the summer months, and not want to pay anything during the winter, so it might have to be a PAYG service. This then requires the ability to authenticate and charge users, and drives up the fixed costs of the service. It really needs some proper business planning, to drive out the best model, which I can't undertake at present.

Happy to help anybody else who wants to give it a go, either an individual or a larger company.
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

I think that there's another problem ahead for any wifi access provider intending to build a business.

The outsider. I've just put an access point into my local pub. They had 2Mb broadband in the office/flat above. Cost them less than £40 and half a dozen Guinnesses.

A month on and office types are now in for a sandwich and web session.

But we're not charging. It's a loss leader which has already paid for itself. Bandwidth not a problem yet, but we can up it if need be.

So if I was running a chandlery/brokerage in a marina I would have put one in by now, and be laughing at Square Mile or anyone else trying to charge.
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

Fully agree.

I am wondering if there is a business opportunity to provide a 'managed' service. ie doing exactly what you have done, where the business manager does not have the time, knowledge, or inclination to set the service up for himself.

How many Guinesses would it take to become a higher rate tax payer? /forums/images/graemlins/wink.gif
 
Re: square mile in the Dragon\'s Den!

I didn't see the show, but I did receive a press release from SM this morning that claimed "The company is also developing the UK's first sailing portal providing every piece of crucial information a sailor could ever need, from quality tidal and weather information, to the very latest deals from chandleries"

I'm not claiming that YBW provides every piece of crucial information a sailor could ever need. You only have to look at some of questions that get asked here to know that's a tough call, but IMHO we've beaten them to the startline in terms of a UK sailing portal...
 
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